As unsuspecting citizens of the developed world ponder how best to survive the current economic crisis, humanity is actually facing another, far more serious, threat. In the near future, humanity will either regress back to the murky depths of the Middle Ages, or it will march onwards and upwards towards a new and previously unthinkable reality. This idea was the theme of the Global Future 2045 Congress, a recent gathering in Moscow to discuss the future direction of civilization.

The idea of choosing the right path is the subject of many
Russian fairy tales. At a certain point in the story, the hero inevitably ends
up at a crossroads, and faces a choice such as: If you go right you’ll lose
your horse, if you go left you’ll lose your head, carry straight on and you’ll
marry a princess and live happily ever after.

It could be argued that mankind is actually at a similar sort of
crossroads right now, although most people would be loath to admit it. The
severity of the situation was lucidly expressed at the Global Future 2045
Congress by Vitaly Dunin-Barkovskiy, a physicist and founder of the Russian
Brain Reverse Engineering Project: “Singularity is inevitable, yet society is
carrying on as if nothing is ever going to change.”

Why should human society – you and me – rethink the way we live
our lives? According to independent studies carried out by scientists and
analysts from a range of disciplines, by the middle of the 21st Century, and maybe even sooner, civilization
on planet Earth will go through a massive paradigm shift, and human life will
change forever. No one knows exactly what form this shift will take, but some
aspects are beginning to become clear.

The concept of technological singularity is one we can expect to
hear more about. This term was coined by the famous American academic, futurist
and inventor Raymond Kurzweil, who made his first trip to Russia as an honored
guest at the Global Future 2045 Congress. Technological singularity is a
hypothetical moment in time when technological progress reaches the point of no
return – when the pace of technological invention skyrockets to the extent that
humans no longer have any control over what happens. In essence, this would
mean the emergence of intelligent, self-replicating machines that operate
without human input.

The critical moment would be when machines take on an artificial
intelligence that matches or exceeds the brainpower of humans. No one in the
academic community doubts that this will happen - the question is not if, but
when. A few scientists – including Kurzweil – suggest singularity will happen
in 2045. Others foresee it occurring even earlier – around 2030. The consensus
is that it won’t be long in coming.

Not convinced? For those who think this is all a bit
far-fetched, Kurzweil points out the following facts and figures in the history
of global communication: It took 400 years to develop a printing press to
distribute information all around the world; the landline telephone was
developed in 50 years, and the mobile phone took only seven. Social networking
sites have conquered the world in just three years. Back in 1982, when Raymond
Kurzweil wrote that the Internet would soon develop into a vast worldwide
network with the number of users doubling each year, his ideas were also
considered far-fetched.

The American scientist’s next prediction is that nanomachines
will be put inside human bodies by 2045.

Human bodies are big news in science. Most speakers at the congress
agreed that in the next few decades, scientists will focus on improving humans,
using technology to enhance our physical bodies. This seems like the logical
next step – the inevitable leap forward in the development of machines should
result in a series of improvements to the human mechanism. Alexander Frolov, a biologist,
thinks cybernetic devices will soon be fused to the human body as a matter of
course: “This could mean using powered exoskeletons for maximizing human
strength and endurance. Or it could entail using additional organs, for
example, a third hand, for working in conditions that demand it.” The next
stage is the creation of an artificial body or an avatar, and this may soon be
within the bounds of possibility. Frolov thinks that, providing scientists
receive sufficient funding, we can expect to see these new developments within
the next few years. For example, some societies could employ anthropomorphic
robots that function as nurses or nannies.

Ambitious technology projects like these could give mankind a
new stimulus for innovation and invention, the like of which has not been seen since
the space. As noted by the Russian writer and futurist Maksim Kalashnikov, the
whole technological armory we take for granted today was actually developed in
the late 1960s – early 1970s when the two main systems of government –
capitalist and socialist – came head to head in a battle for technological
superiority. It was thanks to this powerful stimulus that all the outlandish
scientific ideas of the time actually came to fruition. For example, the lunar
program took only nine years from when the original idea was conceived, to the
actual lunar landing in 1969.

But after the Soviet Union collapsed, technological development
changed direction and veered towards vertical progress – inner and outer space;
and horizontal progress – global communication. Of course, the achievements of
science around the end of the last century cannot be underestimated – most of
us can no longer imagine lives without the Internet or mobile phones. But of
course all these developments have their downsides. Kalashnikov lists them as:
a fall in the quality of education, social autism, illogical thought processes,
the death of reading culture and deindustrialization.

Today Western countries are outsourcing their industrial
production to Asia. This may benefit the natural environment of the Western
world, but, according to many analysts, once industry disappears from a
country, science and education are the next things to go – they simply become
superfluous in a society without production. Then art and culture in that
country also starts to wane. Once all this has happened, it’s only a small step
before the society slips back into the middle ages. “We are seeing more and
more of the new barbarians. They are unable to distinguish cause from effect,
and they are easily deceived. Their video-game mentality means they could
easily start to wreak havoc, not understanding the consequences of this behavior”,
warns Kalashnikov. If the proportion of people like this comes to encompass 50
percent of the Earth’s population, then a new “middle ages” are almost
guaranteed.

These experts believe the salvation of civilization could be in
a mega-project: a global task for the greatest minds, such as a new direction
in space exploration, and the Avatar project. It is global initiatives like
these that will force humanity to seek out new approaches to science and
technology: new goals in science would kick-start research into new sources of
energy and new technology employed in industry. This could spur an army of
scientists and into action, who would further develop research and education.

But still the process of innovation is never simple. As Maksim
Kalashnikov pointed out, if today someone were to invent a cure for tooth
decay, this would kill the whole dental profession. Another expert cited the
example of some Finnish scientists, who developed an incredible 3D printer,
capable of producing metal components, only to find that the market isn’t ready
for it.

Today trillions of dollars are being used to patch up the
crumbling financial system. Wouldn’t it be better to spend this money on
creating something completely new, an investment in an innovative project that
could potentially provide a foundation for the development and renewal of
mankind? And a project like this could only ever be created by the combined
efforts of scientists from all over the world. One of the people at the
conference, test pilot Sergei Zhukov, illustrated this point using NASA as an
example: When funding was cut for the program to explore Mars, American
researchers recommended that NASA turn to Russia and China, saying that
everyone needed to work together.